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I went out with the guys from the Friendly Metal Detecting Forum to a former Girl Scout camp and found a cool old button with religious (Catholic maybe) motifs. The guys found silver and other cool stuff. I had to leave early for my Karate class.

Then I went out on my own to my old trashy park and found a 24 gram, 10K gold chain. I haven’t determined yet if it is plated or solid. It is almost too heavy to be plated. At first glance it appears to have some corroded spots but under the microscope that seems to be some kind of tar-like material sticking to the gold. I snipped the chain with a wire cutter but this didn’t help as the wire cutters crimped the metal and it made it look like it was solid gold. I just got the idea to break the chain the way I saw someone else do it by bending the chain link back and forth until it breaks. This will surely reveal the true nature of the chain. I sure hope it’s the real deal as it would be a cool $500 for mee pocket!

Last, I procured a nickel program for the Deus from Pescadore from the Friendly and after a couple of times of using in the old trashy park, I’ve collected a fistful of Jefferson nickels. I know there are Buffalo nickels there as I have pulled nine of the them from there this year. I also know there are V nickels since I dug one up near the park this Summer. I am hoping this nickel program will increase my count of cool nickels.

So I am looking for more gold. I need to have enough for both the 11 inch coil for the Deus (due sometime late this year or early 2013) and whatever new machine Fisher comes out with next year. If Fisher doesn’t produce a new unit, I will then get a Garrett AT Gold. Oh, don’t get me wrong; I am 110% happy with the Deus but I really liked my AT Pro and I miss it sometimes. I want to have a water proof machine anyway. As for the Fisher, I hear their new machine may be a multi-frequency a la CZ-3D. I hope they make it light!

Sorry I didn’t have time to process the pictures I had for this post so I leave you with this photo I found on the InterWebs:

I went out to the Iron Pit again this afternoon. I hunted for three hours and added so many pull tabs to the gallon jar that I am now half way to full. Besides a Jefferson nickel, I found a tiny gold chain clasp.

At the Iron Pit, I run the AT Pro with the sensitivity at four bars and iron discrimination at 35. I do this to deal with the vast amounts of rusted iron at the site. So I was swinging away when I got a very soft middle tone that would sound about every third swing. It was the quality of the sound that made me take notice. The Target ID (TID) was 35 and the depth indicated was six inches. Since I have no experience with deep gold I thought I’d dig it.

I dug a six inch hole but there was nothing at the bottom. I investigated the pile of dirt with the Propointer and I got zilch. Last, I ran the Pro over the hole and the dirt and I got a hit with a TID of 35. Whenever I saw a TID, it was 35. I then spent a few minutes running small amounts of dirt through the Propointer until I got a hit. I didn’t have to look anymore as I could see the beautiful yellow of gold.

Tiny gold

The clasp actually had a couple of links attached but I lost them during further air testing. The air tests revealed that the coil had to be in contact with the clasp to get a tone and a TID. I guess the clasp was barely beneath the soil and that’s how I detected it.

There is a chain and a pendant out there waiting for me…

From the look of the links that I lost, the chain that this clasp went with was very dainty. I did spend 20 minutes looking for the rest of this chain but I could not find it. I may try to find it again later when I am rested.

So now I know how incredibly difficult it is to detect micro gold. Were I not looking for mid tones, I would have never even considered investigating an iffy mid tone with a TID of 35. I am not surprised that the Pro alerted me to it since I have found tiny bird shot at depths of three and four inches with solid tones and TIDs.